She nurtured me, cared for me, and this man – Markus – he would’ve killed her without another thought.
I think about moving my finger onto the trigger.
But then Jett appears from the bedroom, Patricia walking beside him.
I look her over for injuries – the blood on the couch is like shredded rose petals – but she seems unharmed, wearing her Victorian-style pajamas she assures me are ironic. But really I just think she likes them.
Jett’s hood has fallen down, revealing his shining silver hair, his focused eyes widening for a moment when he sees me holding the gun.
“We’re going,” he growls.
“Are they …”
“Alive,” he snaps. “Not that they deserve it. Come on.”
“What should I do with this?”
I gesture with the gun.
“Whatever you want. Let’s move.”
I hold onto the gun, pointing it down at the ground at my side.
The three of us bustle into the hallway and Jett doesn’t give us any time to talk, just keeps us walking down the stairwell and out onto the street. Patricia moves quickly, not looking at me, one hand hugged across her middle to grip her opposite arm as though she’s protecting herself. I still can’t see any blood or cuts on her.
Rebel is yapping by the time we get to the car, up on her hind legs and leaping up and down on the backseat, trying to reach the window.
I open the door and grab her with my non-gun hand, and then turn and gesture at Jett.
He nods and takes the gun, and then climbs into the car.
“Come on,” he says. “In, both of you.”
I get into the back seat, Rebel on my lap, only now realizing that my breathing is coming even quicker than before. Big shocked intakes and long wavering exhalations, my chest expanding and compressing.
“Patricia,” I murmur, turning to her in the opposite seat.
Jett starts the car and pulls out, his eyes constantly moving, one-hundred percent Jett the Hitman still.
She turns to me. Her bob of hair is spiky in places and matted in others, and her cheeks look even sharper than usual. Her eyes are big black pits.
“Are you hurt?” I ask. “Did they …”
“It wasn’t my blood,” she murmurs.
She sounds really spaced-out. I can’t say I blame her.
“When they broke in, I scratched one of them. I fought. But they fought harder.”
“There were three of them and one of you,” Jett says from the front seat. “Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
My heart soars when he says those comforting words to my best friend, a sign that maybe the two of them will get along. I imagine Patricia attending a family barbecue one day in the future, a bright sunny day, with no men trying to kill us, with no haunted look in her eyes. Maybe she would’ve even found a woman to settle down with by then, instead of flitting from fling to fling.
“He’s right,” I say, reaching across and giving her hand a squeeze. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“It’s my fault,” she croaks. “Oh, God, it’s all my fault.”
“What? No. Patricia, look at me. It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” she says, firmer now. She looks at me oddly. “I know why they’re trying to kill you, Julia. I’ve known for years.”
Chapter Eleven
Jett
I have to focus hard to keep the car on a straight path when Patricia drops a bombshell.
My assassin’s mind goes into overdrive trying to parse possible connections, but without any research, I’m clueless.
I feel like roaring and hammering my chest.
Why couldn’t those motherfuckers just leave us be in that underground haven?
We could’ve stayed down there, just me and Juliana, given into our lust in a conflagration of closeness and heat.
“What?” Juliana murmurs, as I take the bridge that will lead us to the suburbs.
I never use the same safe house twice in a row.
It’s too risky.
But then all of this is damned risky.
“I don’t understand,” she goes on. “What do you mean? How could you possibly know?”
In the rearview, I see Patricia turn and gaze out of the window. It’s like she can’t look at Juliana.
Anger flares in me when I think she’s going to stop talking now.
She owes my woman some answers.
Juliana meets my gaze in the rearview mirror, her eyes telling me to let her handle this, despite the evident pain streaking across her expression.
I nod grimly and turn back to the road, dead-quiet at this time of night.
“That day we met outside the railway station, that wasn’t by chance,” she says. “I was following you. I’d been following you for a long time.”
I fight the urge to get involved.
I don’t like the idea of my woman being followed by anybody except me.
“Why?” Juliana demands.
Rebel must sense her anger because she gives a short yip.
“I … Oh, God, this is so hard. I’m so sorry.”
Juliana reaches across and places her hand atop her friend’s.